Monday, 10 May 2021

ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD – WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1717-1850)

 

Wordsworth is sorry for the loss of childhood which he believes was surrounded by innocence and mystery. He could see in nature all around him a celestial quality. He remembers a period of childhood where everything was fresh and beautiful and how he has lost his faculty of seeing beauty and mystery in nature.

Stanza 1 – His dream is of this paradisial state from which he has come. He has lost this ability of seeing things in celestial quality and God in every ordinary thing which he thinks a child still retains.

Stanza 2 – He believes that nature is unchanging in its beauty. There will always be radiance and star look beautiful, but the only thing is that the poet’s perception of it has changed. The glory has disappeared. He appreciates beauty with regard to things in nature, but he cannot see the celestial light.

Stanza 3 – Labor – small drum; one cataract – waterfall. It is spring time. nature is joyful, lively and gay.

Stanza 4 – Coronal – Garland of flowers. The joy that he feels is forced. It does not come naturally or easily to him as it once did when he was a child. The poet feels that there is something wrong with him because he cannot participate wholeheartedly in the joy of nature. (Pansies are associated with thoughts).

Stanza 5 – This forgetting is the place from where we come from i.e., heaven. Soul comes from God. As we grow old, we move away from the light of God to adulthood.

Stanza 6 – Earth is personified as a foster mother and the child is being compensated for what is lost. The earthly pleasures and pursuits all tend to make us forget our former glorious state.

Stanza 7 – The child has earthly parents and they equip the child to face problems of life, worldly events and pursuits occupy man’s time and energies. He soon busies himself in continually imitating the action and pursuits of others and thereby he forgets his heavenly home.

Stanza 8 – The external appearance does not show how immense the soul is and the great potential the soul has.

Stanza 9 – Soul is immense. Child opens peoples’ eyes to reality of God around them. Child’s mind is constantly in touch with God. Man is constantly in search of though with such things. He need not search it. A grown up man’s mind is dark. He does not know the truth. Freight – soul. Frost can cause harm and destruction. Worries of the world almost frost you. Embers – ashes. In the embers there are tiny sparks of light and these bits of light according to Wordsworth are remembrance of our earlier existence in paradise. If a man is in touch with his childhood, he finds some solace or peace. Although Wordsworth is far removed from blessed state of childhood, there is hope yet. A man can always find strength in remembrance of things passed. Memories of the past are a source of infinite happiness. They are reform of all our understanding which nothing can destroy. So it is essentially the remembrance of childhood. This is the essence of poems.

Stanza 10 – He takes pleasure in nature. He does not want to give it up.

Stanza 11 – He appreciates the morning day is still young as the child is young. The clouds that make things mystique and unclear, the clouds rob the light of the day. Clouds of gloom, depression and sadness make the end of life gloomy and sad. Flowers can provoke men to think deep thoughts. Flowers provoke men to facts of death and life.

 

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